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News & ArtsWednesday, November 25, 2009
Religion Rape of Irish Boys "Endemic," "Systematic" at Homes Run By Catholic Religious Order
Posted by Dan Savage on Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 9:36 AM
It amazes me that the leaders of the Catholic Church are taken seriously when they lecture other people—including non-Catholics—about their sexual morality. BBC:
A Catholic religious order is to supply a 161m euros (£145m) package of measures as reparation for child abuse in Ireland. The Christian Brothers said the decision had been taken in response to the Ryan report which revealed decades of abuse at religious institutions.... More than 2,000 people told the commission they had suffered physical and sexual abuse as children in the institutions, which included schools and orphanages. It found that sexual abuse was "endemic" in boys' institutions, and church leaders knew what was going on.... More allegations were made against the Christian Brothers than the other male orders combined.
In a statement the order says it is filled with "shame and sorrow." Yeah right. No from the Catholic Brothers lifted a finger to stop the abuse while it was happening. If they're feeling shame and sorrow now it's because they got caught. And the same order that failed to protect the Irish children entrusted to its care moved heaven and earth to protect the rapists and their accomplices that are still members:
No real names, of perpetrators, appeared in the Ryan report after the Christian Brothers took legal action in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, out of the report.
They're shameless.
5
Again we see the failing of taking these cases on privately. They should be tried in a criminal court. You can damn well bet you'd hear their names then. Payment of hush money isn't enough; the rapists are still there, and worse, the men who knew and protected them are still there.
9
Combine this with how they treated women in the care of nuns (as slaves, with sexual abuse too!) and you get an idea with why the Catholic Church is pretty much universal loathed by the Irish, even the devoutly Catholic ones.
11
@5: Really. Words like "sin" and "morality" and "shame" are all very well, but how about a little more emphasis on "felony", "accessory before the fact", "criminal conspiracy" and "obstruction of justice"? A school-district superintendent who knowingly shuffled a rapist teacher around between schools in his district, so as to keep the teacher one step ahead of accumulating accusations, would not at this point be worried about keeping his name out of the papers. It would be all about whether he could keep his prison sentence to ten years instead of 20.
12
@5 - The problem is that the criminal statute of limitations has run out on a lot of these cases. The only way to bring them to light is to file a civil law suit.
Personally, I don't think there should be a statute of limitations for any kind of child abuse. Young victims often repress their memory of the abuse as a coping mechanism. If it comes to light later in life, the abuser should still be held criminally accountable.
Personally, I don't think there should be a statute of limitations for any kind of child abuse. Young victims often repress their memory of the abuse as a coping mechanism. If it comes to light later in life, the abuser should still be held criminally accountable.
13
It's time to prosecute church leaders who knowingly move priests from one church to the next in order to cover up abuses. Both the physical perpetrators and the enabling church leaders need to be sent to prison.
15
@12: there's an easy solution to the statute of limitations problem: a massive public inquiry.
Why is it that we only talk of the shame of the victims? The victims have nothing to be ashamed of; they are crime victims. The ones who should be ashamed are the bastards who raped them and then covered it up, and are covering it up still.
I suggest a governmental inquiry in the Dail. I don't know if they have the equivalent of our Congressional Hearings, but I think a long, long parade of Church officials answering hundreds of deeply embarrassing questions would be very cathartic. "What was the father's name? When did you first realize he was raping the children he was supposed to be caring for? Did you make any notes? Where did you put those notes? Did you hear about the matter again? What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?"
And there's another thing about the statute of limitations: if there's no risk of criminal prosecution, there's no more "taking the Fifth". They should do this in America too.
In fact, I think "have you ever raped any children?" is an appropriate question for EVERY Catholic priest, and "have you ever covered up a sex crime?" for every Catholic official. Ask someone today. Hound the bastards to their graves.
Why is it that we only talk of the shame of the victims? The victims have nothing to be ashamed of; they are crime victims. The ones who should be ashamed are the bastards who raped them and then covered it up, and are covering it up still.
I suggest a governmental inquiry in the Dail. I don't know if they have the equivalent of our Congressional Hearings, but I think a long, long parade of Church officials answering hundreds of deeply embarrassing questions would be very cathartic. "What was the father's name? When did you first realize he was raping the children he was supposed to be caring for? Did you make any notes? Where did you put those notes? Did you hear about the matter again? What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?"
And there's another thing about the statute of limitations: if there's no risk of criminal prosecution, there's no more "taking the Fifth". They should do this in America too.
In fact, I think "have you ever raped any children?" is an appropriate question for EVERY Catholic priest, and "have you ever covered up a sex crime?" for every Catholic official. Ask someone today. Hound the bastards to their graves.
18
And yet if you point out their leadership consists of a conspiracy of pedophile-enablers led by a former Hitler Youth, they'll call it 'hate speech' and cry about discrimination.
19
I grew up in an uber Catholic family, did the whole parochial schools and altar boy thing up through 12th grade, spent hundreds-- nay, thousands-- of my pre-adulthood life in the close company of priests, monsignors and brothers.... and not one of those heartless childfuckers ever made a pass at me. I go back and look at all my kiddy photos, and I don't think I was a bad-looking kid. I mean, if I were a an adult who liked to molest the young, I totally would have molested the younger me. So what gived? Surely it wasn't a statistical anomaly whereby I simply never encountered a predatory priest-- in fact, I KNOW factually in hindsight that I was indeed acquainted with priests who later made newspaper headlines for their sex misdeeds.
Er, maybe my question belonged on Questionland or should've been addressed to the Savage Love inbox. Sorry for my interruption to this fine comment thread.....
Er, maybe my question belonged on Questionland or should've been addressed to the Savage Love inbox. Sorry for my interruption to this fine comment thread.....
20
"The report, nine years in the making and covering a period of six decades, also found government inspectors failed to stop beatings, rapes and humiliation. "
and then...
"The report found child safety was not a priority for the Christian Brothers who ran the institutions, the order was defensive in its response to complaints and failed to accept any congregational responsibility for abuse."
Clearly the government played a part in the decades-long concealment of abuse and the "shame and sorrow" of the order mentioned earlier was merely another lie told to placate the members and keep the money flowing.
What parent would accept this? Why aren't churches burning all across Ireland?
and then...
"The report found child safety was not a priority for the Christian Brothers who ran the institutions, the order was defensive in its response to complaints and failed to accept any congregational responsibility for abuse."
Clearly the government played a part in the decades-long concealment of abuse and the "shame and sorrow" of the order mentioned earlier was merely another lie told to placate the members and keep the money flowing.
What parent would accept this? Why aren't churches burning all across Ireland?
21
OmaSky, excellent question: why aren't those churches burning? But, let's not restrict the question to Ireland. Given that in 2009, with all that we know about how the Church in the good ol' US of A has abused our children, our women, our LGBTs, etc., and given what we know about how the Bishops nonetheless still retain enough influence on our Congress to strip reproductive rights out of health care legislation in the present year, why aren't the churches burning HERE?
A corollary to my question might be: why aren't our legislative assembly buildings burning, too, V-for-Vendetta-style? ****
*** Note to Secret Service: question purely rhetorical and not intended as incitement, fuck you very much.
A corollary to my question might be: why aren't our legislative assembly buildings burning, too, V-for-Vendetta-style? ****
*** Note to Secret Service: question purely rhetorical and not intended as incitement, fuck you very much.
23
@21 They are destroying themselves. Don't make them martyrs. They'd milk it for another two thousand years.
25
Hm, I went to Brother Rice high school in MI, run by the "Christian Brothers of Ireland". I wonder if that's the same order? Anyone know, or is it just a similarly named order for the Americas?
26
Just because they are evil bastards who should have their dicks chopped off and shoved down their throats as a way of executing them doesn't mean that they aren't really ashamed. I think people can do bad things and be filled with shame about them even if they plan on doing that same thing again.
Sexual impulses are strong, and these guys are pedophiles. Kids are their sexual orientation. They can't stop fucking kids any more than I can stop fucking women or Dan can stop fucking men. That doesn't mean they don't feel bad about it. On the other hand, the fact that they feel bad about it doesn't mean anything. The fact that they feel remorse has no bearing on whether they deserve to be beat until they look way worse than roadkill.
Sexual impulses are strong, and these guys are pedophiles. Kids are their sexual orientation. They can't stop fucking kids any more than I can stop fucking women or Dan can stop fucking men. That doesn't mean they don't feel bad about it. On the other hand, the fact that they feel bad about it doesn't mean anything. The fact that they feel remorse has no bearing on whether they deserve to be beat until they look way worse than roadkill.
27
@26 Agreed, today's blog posting focuses on the systemic and criminal cover-up of the crimes. While never excusing or "redeeming" the sin of the abuse itself, more light needs to be directed at those who conspired and enabled it to continue for so long.
28
I still love the contradiction here. "All sex has to be reproductive, hence, heterosexual... so knock it off, faggot.... well, knock it off if the guy you're doing it with is an adult who actually wants to have sex with you. If he's a kid you're raping, then carry on."
29
Do not forget the little girls the priest rape. The latest Irish report mentions, among others, a priest using holy water in an altar bowl to wash the scent of a girl from his hands after assaulting her in a confessional. Another priest assaults a small girl by brutally inserting an object into her vagina and then her back passage. That object is his crucifix.
Religion is very sinister.
Religion is very sinister.
30
wtf!!!!do people really think that they could get away with this kind of bs if i was over there right now i would anniahlate every single one of those fucking satanist fucks and by the way christ was half human but he was really flesh and blood even though christ could heal people it didn't mean that he didn't have his own problems and the only reason people say that christ was not a christian is because he didn't know what religion would be the best for him so he just chose to heal people and christ planned out his entire lifes work step by step one day at a time and yes christ was born a christian even if most people want to argue about what religin is superior i know that all religions are the same in every way even if the names and orders and figures change so what no one religion is superior to another and people need to own up to the fact that if the human race would take care of every single kid and not throw them into the arms of anyone else then there would be no need for these kinds of discussions and it really does not matter if that kid u are taking care of is yours or not every kid should be treated with respect and dignety and not be treated like a slave or anything else..............and further more i know how bad the world is i have always known and only people who can take care of a child and treat that child with respect and dignity should be able to be around any child........
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